World records, world championships, half marathons and PB’s.
We are sitting here in Istanbul airport waiting for a replacement flight as we missed ours by less than a minute!!! But it gives us a great chance to reflect on what hasn’t only been a great week for Coggles Fitness and its athletes, but also a milestone. In the space of seven days, we had four athletes compete, in four different countries, two of them in world championships, but not only world championships, they were competing in completely opposing sports!
For me, the process started by boarding a plane to fly out to Mongolia to help coach the
Great Britain Masters Powerlifting Team. It’s always an honour to be invited to coach at internationals, you are a part of some people’s best days, and worst days, but you must coach them through and get the best you can out of every individual athlete. Amongst helping the GB athletes, Coggles Fitness Athlete’s had a busy week ahead also, starting the week off we had Anne wander off to Bournemouth for the Bournemouth 10k, and in the process picked herself up two, not one but two personal bests, 5km personal best and a 10km personal best. Not a bad way to start the week, how Anne keeps getting better
with age I will never know. Since turning 69 Anne has qualified for European and World Triathlon 70.3 championships, Pb’d her 5k and 10k runs, and leg pressed more than she ever has, when people say age is just a number, it is! As the lady commentator at Outlaw Half said #BemoreAnne.
From the highs of Bournemouth, our attention moved to Mongolia for Rebecca and the Masters World Powerlifting Championships. With Rebecca being nominated in 4th place, the brief was simple, have fun and we will get what we can in the process. Rebecca had an almost unicorn day walking away with all 9 lifts, starting with a squat world record of 215.5kg, of course taking gold in the squat. A personal best full power bench of 125kg (this could have been 127.5kg if she hadn’t rushed her second attempt making it look really heavy, just so she could go for a wee!) although, this was still enough to get her the bench
press silver medal and a new Commonwealth and British Record, finally she managed an equal platform Pb deadlift of 175kg. This meant she achieved a personal best total of 515.5kg, another British Record, narrowly beating fellow GB teammate and taking second place overall! Not a bad day, a world record and finishing 2nd in the world.
From Mongolia, we travel to Kona, Hawaii for Julie competing at the Ironman World Championships! For those of you that don’t know, Ironman is a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and, 26.2 mile run. The day was brutal, and some mishaps along the way meant Julie had to dig in deep and find out how much she really wanted it! On the bike, the organisers lost her special needs bag (it contains hydration top-ups, nutrition etc. at roughly halfway round the bike) which meant she was on the back foot from then. On entering transition two (bike to run) she fainted due to the heat, but she managed to dust herself off and get out on the run, finishing this brutal course in under 15 hours. From starting with Julie two years ago, and rehabbing a few injuries, this has been her goal, JULIE YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!
From Hawaii, we travel to Amsterdam where Yiannis took on the Amsterdam Half marathon. This has been a crazy year for Yiannis, he first approached me in the preseason saying he wants to podium in as many distances as possible! This is the kind of tomfoolery I can get behind, so we struck up a plan. Fast forward to now and he’s on target with only one race left, when he got an invite to run the Amsterdam Half marathon for team Polar. Well, you can’t turn this opportunity down, and it was good that he didn’t as he walked away with a new half-marathon pb!!! Yiannis has gone from strength to strength, and I feel like he hasn’t even hit his peak yet. I’m excited to see what the future holds for him.
What a crazy week that was, Four athletes in four countries, in three different sports, breaking personal and world records. As a coach I could not be prouder of them all, it takes a lot of sacrifice and determination to hit big goals, and they all did it with style. I take my hat off to you all.
How do you train athletes in multiple sports to World Championship standard? Over the next few weeks and blogs, I will break down some of the processes and systems used to get these athletes to the top of their game! If you want to know something specific, please send me an email so I can answer your questions or potentially get inspiration for another blog.
Can’t wait that long? Please go and check out our programmes and team training programmes on the following link
Remember, Build an engine and make them strong!
Craig
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